The Calm Before the Storm
by Alice the Strange
Summary: ."Every play has to end eventually. And it looked like the curtains for this one had just closed. Closed on the two best actors in this world, and both of them had missed their cues." Irene Adler finally hears about Sherlock's death. Reviews are welcome.


A/N: This is my first story featuring Irene Adler, and I really hope I've managed to get her character right! If you don't like it, if anything seems shoddy or out of place, please review and let me know. Of course, you can review it if you like it, as well. :) Enjoy! Oh, and this also contains some blink-and-you'll-miss-it femmeslash. You have been warned.

* * *

_the calm before the storm_

* * *

Mere months away from her old life, Irene Adler had already begun to experience the frustrations of the fugitive.

It wasn't that outlaw life didn't suit her; she'd always thought it would, and so far things seemed to be working out well. The climate was good, if you liked sunshine, and the food was excellent, if you liked Greek cuisine, and the house was pleasant enough, if you liked modern art and marble pillars and sleek, advanced audio equipment. There was a housekeeper, and a gardener, and a cook, and olive trees, and a veranda, and barely any other human beings nearby – and none of these things made her as happy as she felt she should be.

It was the excitement, really. That was what she missed most. Holiday getaways were all very well and good, but when they ceased to be optional and became mandatory, the whole thing abruptly grew tedious. She'd been told, sure enough, told by the best, that she should keep her head down; advised to keep a low profile until things died down a little, and be safe, be cautious, be deliberate. Three things that had never applied to her, and probably never would.

But it wasn't all negative. Piece by piece, brick by brick, she was rebuilding her shield – in every sense of the word. There was the physical one, kept stored by data on a screen, by numbers and photographs and information that should never have been divulged at all. And there was the other shield, less visible, but more complex and far, far more permanent. It had been damaged, of course, but now she knew better. She knew how to make it stronger this time. How to cover up the cracks.

Soon, she was sure, nobody would be able to get past it at all.

"Is there anything you need, Miss Adler?"

Irene let her head fall languidly in the direction of the voice. Kate was standing just by the French windows, caught in a perfect chiaroscuro of light and shade. She shook her head. "Just the newspapers, Kate. And a drink would be appreciated, too. Something cold."

"Make sure you don't stay out there too long, Miss. Looks like there's a storm coming."

"It's not come yet, has it? And until it does, I'm quite comfortable here, thank you."

"Well, today's weather forecast puts it at thirty-five," Kate said. "Remember, you haven't amassed an ill-gotten fortune to lose it to skin cancer."

"Quite right," Irene said. "About that drink?"

"I'll fetch it for you now, Miss."

The door slammed shut again, and Irene leaned back with a sigh. Yes, it was hot. Not hot as it would have been considered back in England, that mere tepid warmth of a summer day free from clouds, but instead the kind of blazing heat that was headed towards a storm. It baked the air dry, crisping the grass into withered brown toothbrush bristles. Irene's tight sheath dresses, the gloves and boots, the elegant jackets: they were all long-gone now, replaced by whispering peignoirs and long sundresses paper-thin as the wings of dragonflies. Despite her attire, the heat was becoming ever more cloying, and she couldn't help but shift uncomfortably in her seat.

Presently, Kate returned with the newspapers and a champagne flute filled with raspberry cordial. Watching her return to the shade and relative coolness of the house, Irene tapped her tongue thoughtfully against her teeth. Everyone, she thought, should be allowed one or two cracks in their shield. Not significant ones, of course. Just a space large enough for one person to slip through, if that person was so inclined.

Reaching out a hand to the nearby coffee table, Irene gathered today's newspapers into her lap. Despite no longer considering herself a British citizen, she liked to keep up with the news – _after all,_ she thought wryly, _you never know when it might come in handy._ Unbidden, an image crossed her mind – sharp, slanted eyes above a high collar, dark curls, that _ridiculous _ear hat – and she almost smiled. The expression was fleeting, like lightning, and faded in an instant.

Taking a sip from the tall glass of raspberry cordial she'd placed by her chair, she turned over the first newspaper and glanced at the headline.

And stopped.

To tell the truth, she'd always been inclined towards dramatic gestures, but for once, this wasn't like the films. There was no gasp, no flinch, and her hand – carefully cupped around the glass – remained perfectly steady. She finished the article quite calmly, flipped to the next page and continued to read.

When she was done, she leaned back in her chair. Her chest was tight, but she breathed deeply and slowly to ease it, because felt too much like defeat, like regret; and those were two words she'd steered well clear of recently, as best as she possibly could. She turned her face upwards, and saw to her mild surprise the dark, obese clouds beginning to congregate overhead, despite the humidity.

Pressing one hand against the back of her neck to smear away the sweat that had begun to collect there, she placed that newspaper to one side and began on the others. There were the usual speeches and scandals and sports reports, tedious stuff, but most of the papers carried at least one article on the fraud detective, Sherlock Holmes. Some had differing viewpoints, some were well-written, some were not. It didn't matter, though. Essentially, they all said the same thing.

_In a shocking twist, Richard Brook was revealed to be merely an actor Holmes had hired for the part of his nemesis, Jim Moriarty…_Well,_ that's_ certainly true, Irene said to herself, even if nothing else is. Jim Moriarty _was_ an actor, and she knew it better than most. Better than some. He lived his whole life in a dazzling spotlight, and at the same time he concealed himself behind layers of costumes and personas and slippery words, behind lines rehearsed for God knew how long beforehand.

But every play had to end eventually. And it looked like the curtains for this one had just closed. Closed on the two best actors in this world, and both of them had missed their cues.

For a moment, there was utter silence, utter stillness, apart from the creak of the aged floorboards and the shrill chirping of cicadas, lost somewhere in the parched gardens beyond the veranda. Black-painted nails, scrupulously manicured, with the oily sheen of beetles'-wings, traced absently across the grainy photograph, sketching out the 2D angles and contours. There was no flesh beneath them this time – just thin, rustling paper – and her gesture was less possessive and more wistful, although she wouldn't have cared to apply such a word to herself.

_I could cut myself slapping that face…_

A crack of lightning, blinding and effervescent, broke through the clouds and illuminated the whole world for a split second in an electric glow. This time Irene did gasp, and the crystal flute slipped from her suddenly slack hand, exploding in a firework of glittering fragments and spilling a trail of sticky pink liquid over the floor.

Irene was aware of a warm wetness on her arm, and at first she thought some of the drink had spilled out onto her sleeve, but then she looked down and it was too thick for that, too dark. A shard of glass had clipped her skin – a graze, a papercut, nothing more. But this dress was expensive, and there was no point in wasting good fabric, now was there?

"Kate -" she called out, a little breathless. It was meant to be a shout, but left her more softly than she'd intended. But Kate heard, of course, just as she always did, and the French windows opened on cue, admitting a perfectly coiffed red head, swiftly followed by a slim body in a designer dress.

"Oh!" she said in consternation, seeing the broken glass. "Are you…all right, Miss Adler?"

"Perfectly," Irene said. Her voice sounded a little odd to her, although she couldn't for the life of her have said why, and she swallowed to try and get rid of the strangeness that was collecting in her throat. "I'm fine. My hand just…slipped. It was the lightning."

Kate stepped closer, head tilted slightly back. "You're bleeding."

"It's only a scratch."

Irene lifted the loose sleeve and hooked it up to her elbow, raised her forearm to her mouth and licked the blood away, neatly and delicately, like a cat. Dropping the sleeve again, she tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth, in the manner of an epicure sampling a particularly fine champagne.

"You exhibitionist_,"_ Kate scolded her.

"Are you complaining?"

"God, no." Kate wandered over to the coffee table, trailing a hand over its surface. "Anything interesting in the news this morning?"

Irene allowed her gaze to linger idly on the contours of those hips, before following them down the curve of Kate's legs to the silver stiletto heels (how impractical), and she shook her head with a soft, almost mocking laugh. "My dear, there almost never is."

Narrowing her eyes as she scanned the first article, her maid looked across to her. "This one's about that detective you were keen on," she said, keeping her voice light. "You read the article, I'm assuming?"

"I wasn't keen on him," Irene corrects her. "He was interesting, I'll grant you that. But where can you really go from _interesting?_ Nowhere, really. I prefer men with a little more…hm…substance."

"As you say," was Kate's response. Her voice was neutral – it neither believed nor disbelieved, but Irene could read her thoughts on the matter down to the last nuance. It should have made her furious, should have made her want to rage and scream at this girl who dared to know everything she's thinking and feeling. But it didn't, and that, really, was a part of the problem.

A chill breeze stirred the air suddenly, shuffling the pages of the newspaper like a pack of cards and tugging a few strands of Irene's hair loose from the clasp. It wasn't that cold, but she found herself breaking out in goose-pimples, the sweat that had pooled in the curves of her body turning to ice and making her shiver.

"Storm's getting up," Kate observed. "You should come inside."

"No. I'm fine where I am."

"Are you sure?"

Irene put a hand to the stray pieces of hair that had fallen free around her face. "Quite sure," she said. "Just…come over here a minute?"

Kate obeys, and Irene stood to meet her, reaching out one hand and allowing the fingers that once caressed the sharp planes of a dead man's face to dust over Kate's high, powdered cheekbones. Lightly, like snowflakes. Like moths.

"What do you need?" Kate said, very quietly.

Irene shook her head a second time. "Hold me close, my love," she breathed, as the first raindrops began to fall, pattering on the roof of the veranda. "I'm cold – so very cold."

And Kate obeyed.


End file.
